SKYWARD
Ethics and Metaphysics of Transhumanism: a proposal
Alexey Dodsworth Magnavita de Carvalho
Supervised byRenato Janine Ribeiro and Fabrizio Turoldo
Università Ca’ Foscari (Venice, Italy) Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil)
INDEX
Abstract………...3
Initial considerations……...……….………..……….4
CHAPTER 1 – THE IMPERATIVE OF BIOCOSMIC EXPANSION – AN ETHICAL PROPOSAL……….8
Transhumanists against the Jonasian summum malum………..…….8
Trasumanar – From Dante to Huxley……….16
Prometheus unbound ………...………25
Objections against transhumanism…………..………30
First objection: the “Ship of Theseus Paradox”.………...………30
Second objection: the rise of super-humans………..34
Third objection: genetic engineering……….……….…..36
The Starchild beyond anthropocentrism………….………42
CHAPTER 2 – METAPHYSICS: THE EMMERGENCE OF A COSMIC AWARENESS………...57
Transhumanism and metaphysics: initial considerations…...…….………57
On systems and truths……….……….59
Life, sentience, and intelligence: is there a cosmic telos?……….63
Cosmic physical constants………..66
On the existence of multiple universes………72
On wagers……….87
Conclusions………..………..……….95
ABSTRACT
This thesis - of nomothetic nature - advocates in favour of a cosmically expanded humanity, as proposed by transhumanists in the first topic of their Declaration published in 1998: we envision the possibility of (…) overcoming (…) our confinement to planet Earth. In order to accomplish this purpose, two topics are considered: (1) ethics, in which the Hobbesian concept of summum malum is surpassed in order to agree with the Hans Jonas's statement: if we can say there is a supreme evil, it is the eventual extinction of the human species. Therefore, in order to avoid the Jonasian summum malum, this thesis proposes the biocosmic expansion as an imperative based on zoocentric bioethics; (2) metaphysics, in which an exercise of cosmogonic supposition – as proposed by Jonas - is taken into account, and the humankind is seen as a way that the cosmos found to understand itself not in a single scenario but in multiple universes.
Keywords: summum malum; space colonisation; mass extinction; transhumanism;
Initial Considerations
Tis true without lying, certain and most true. That which is below is like that which is above, And that which is above is like that which is below, To do the miracles of one only thing (…)1
The ontology of humankind is also the ontology of the skies. The ties that bind them together are inextricable to such a degree that changes in one incur in a profound transformation of the other as in a mutual reflection.
This thesis is a development of my master’s degree research on ethics from a number of perspectives. Before defending the thesis itself, I find it necessary to present a brief summary of the dissertation that precedes it, so as to shed a light upon my original standpoint and my ultimate outcome.
The dissertation2 presented at University of São Paulo (Brazil) tries to demonstrate that the paradigm shift in cosmology that occurred between the centuries XVI and XVII contributed significantly to the epistemic transformations described by Michel Foucault (1926-1984) in Les Mots et Les Choses (1966). In this book, Foucault poses the question: how did the dramatic epistemic shift occur in the West? As Foucault does not provide any answers, I attempted to propose one, taking the following into account:
The ancient epistemology is underlined by an Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmology, which divided the cosmos in two worlds. The sublunar one, home of becoming as well as of corruptible matter and the superlunar one, characterised by its immutability and eternal elements having neither beginning nor end. Consequently, this architecture of the astrological sky guaranteed the existence of a meaning that, in addition to preceding humankind, also unveiled in the configurations of the celestial sphere. The world, place of becoming, was viewed as the product of a divine will, which would have created everything in a beautiful and flawless manner. The symbolic interpretation of the heavenly positions conveyed the designs of the intelligent creator3. To glimpse the starry sky was,
1 Hermes Trismegistus, Emerald Tablet. Translated from the original in Latin by Isaac Newton. 2 DODSWORTH-MAGNAVITA, Alexey (2013). From Sky to Genes. (Master’s Thesis, USP),. Available from: http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8133/tde-29012014-105129/pt-br.php.
(2018, October 23)
therefore, to contemplate aprioristic essences. This link between the heavens and humankind was paramount to form the Christian ethics of resignation and tolerance, predominantly in the first five centuries of Christianity. Even the matters then regarded as monstrous were nonetheless seen as part of the celestial norm.
The aforementioned ethics undergoes a dramatic transformation between the centuries XVI and XVII. As put forward in my master’s dissertation, this was due to the cosmological revolution led by Copernicus, Kepler, and above all by Galileo. The celestial bodies - then regarded as “spheres of ether” - were unveiled in all their unexpected becoming and all the banality of the elements composing them: the Moon, with its craters and mountains steeper than terrestrial ones; the planet Jupiter, surrounded by other moons in its orbit. Upon the realisation that the celestial spheres were as irregular and subject to the becoming as our own world was, the macrocosmic harmony of the astrological sky - organised, harmonic, eternal - gave way to a sky without any aprioristic essence: an astrophysical cosmos - imperfect, irregular, threatening.
As our knowledge of astrophysics evolved, there was a change in the sense of wonder, the starting point of the whole of philosophy. Our wondrous awe before the stars above us was replaced by a terrifying dread. We were faced with a sky that not only no longer offered the guarantee of eternity, but also loomed with its menacing celestial bolides, gamma ray explosions and other mass extinction phenomena.
It has been this shift of perspective regarding the skies that gave rise to the concept of abnormal, a existing term in ancient times and hence, non-applicable. The word “normal”, however, was used though only in its geometrical sense: a vertical straight line that meets a perpendicular horizontal one, symbol of the divine will (vertical line) that rules over the world of becoming (horizontal line). As pointed out in my master’s degree dissertation, the word “anomaly” was used for the first time to refer to irregularities in the position of the planet Mars, once the mathematics of the time did not allow for the precise position of the red planet to be known. The concept of “anomaly” gradually found its way into the field of biology, the field of medicine and finally, by the XIX century, it could also be found in the fields of psychiatry and psychology. There were now abnormal bodies and abnormal beings to be rectified due to the lack of a macrocosmic harmony to
ensure everything was within a norm. Our different understanding of the sky led to a different understanding of humankind. It had gone from a very characteristic ancient Christianity ethic of tolerance that stated: “This is foreign or weird to me,
but given that it is, it can only have come into being out of divine will and therefore it is justifiable by some celestial design” to an ethic of rectification that is put into
works by use of technical knowledge and which states: “This is foreign or weird to
me; what means do I have at my disposal to fix such strangeness?”
While in my master’s dissertation the scope was limited to a description of what had transpired during such process, in the present thesis, I will discuss the contemporary framework of ethics and its possible future outcomes. I intend to illustrate the emergence of yet another transformation in ethics, which equally stems from a change in the way humankind regards the skies. Whereas in antiquity the astrological sky is phased out to have the astrophysical sky introduced instead, we now bear witness to the introduction of the paradigm of the
astronautic sky, a shift that has been underway since the second half of the XX
century. Moreover, the debate around life is now reconstituted as astrobiology, which no longer understands our world as being separate from the remainder of the universe.
In this new relationship with the stars, knowledge and technical power allow human intelligence to redesign the species as transhumanity. The homo sapiens then gives way to the homo faber, whose technique makes possible to invade what were previously the unreachable skies. The human cities have long constituted a topos where humans make use of their technology to seek shelter from the inclement elements and to have a circumscribed space to live a happy life. Notwithstanding, such knowledge and technical power also incurred in the unstoppable growth of these former self-contained realms in such a way that there is no territory we cannot occupy. Thus, removed from its sanctity, the skies had their veil lifted to reveal a territory as ordinary as any other, one that also stands as the promise of the continuity of life in other forms and even of a transformation of our current understanding of “life” itself.
All things considered, this thesis is divided into two chapters:
The first chapter encompasses a thorough study of this new ethical system, based on the transhumanist movement, which I define as biocentric but not
geocentric, and call the ethic of desperation; the second chapter contemplates a
metaphysical hypothesis derived from Jonas’ cosmogonical suppositions regarding the divine wager, and this supposition serves as a basis for the ethical system this thesis propounds.
Throughout the chapters, I especially and foremost derive my contentions from the work4 of the German-born Jewish philosopher Hans Jonas (1903-1993), since his legacy holds particular value toward ethics, especially concerning his plead for the extreme emergency of developing a new ethics that may account for transhumanism. As a matter of fact, the ethic of despair here described bears resemblance to the heuristics of fear asserted by Jonas. I do highlight, however, that the present work does not portend a perfect alignment with the whole of Jonas’s proponents. As I made an effort to demonstrate, there are a number of issues critical to the matter at hand that, had them been known or taken into consideration by Jonas, might have led him to draw different conclusions.
This thesis thus leans on Jonas’s works, albeit parting from the philosopher’s ideas in some regards, as its interest is to further contribute with some original thought. Which is, incidentally, the ultimate goal of a doctoral thesis: not to echo previously uttered words simply by rephrasing them, but to aim at broadening the already existing perspectives. Thereby allowing future generations to follow suit, feeling at liberty to either extend or refute whatever ideas are put forward here.
4 Namely Das Prinzip Verantwortung: Versuch einer ethic für die Technologische Zivilisation (1979), translated from German to Portuguese by Marijane Lisboa and Luiz Barros Montez, PUC-Rio (2006).
1. THE IMPERATIVE OF BIOCOSMIC EXPANSION – AN ETHICAL PROPOSAL.
1.1. Transhumanists against the Jonasian summum malum.
In this thesis, the main proposition is in alignment with the first topic of the
Transhumanist Declaration5, which advocates among several points the expansion of consciousness toward the outer space, and the proliferation of life beyond planetary boundaries. According to the topic,
(…) We envision the possibility of broadening human potential by overcoming aging,6 cognitive shortcomings, involuntary suffering, and our
confinement to planet Earth (VITA-MORE et al: 2013: pg. 54).
A post terrestrial humankind (or transhumanity) is here defended as able to deal with the concept of summum malum, in accordance to Hans Jonas perspective: the extinction of the whole of the human species is the actual supreme evil to be avoided (JONAS: 2015: pg. 83-88). The Jonasian perspective is significantly expanded in comparison to the Hobbes7’s, who in turn defines: the
supreme evil to be avoided is the violent death8.
It is possible to contend that the Hobbesian restriction to the summum malum regarding an individual’s violent death derives from the fact that the
concept of "species extinction" was practically non-existent during this philosopher’s lifetime. Even the religious version of catastrophism that was in vogue during Hobbes’ time – Noah’s flood – did not make mention of extinct species, only of individuals - both human and non-human animals - who met their demise in the water and humankind was far from knowing what a dinosaur was. It is therefore understandable that Hobbes had not imagined something worse than the individual violent death.
5 The current Transhumanist Declaration consists in a series of eight topics. It was originally crafted in 1998 and has been modified by several authors over the years.
6 Underlined by me.
7 Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury (1588-1679), English philosopher.
8 Free translation from the original in Latin: Mortem violentam tanquam summum malum studet evitare.HOBBES. De Homine, chap. 11, art. 6.
This thesis argues for the extreme urgency of a new ethic that lays out criteria for actions centred around the goal of avoiding the Jonasian summum
malum. This ethic is driven by a generous non-reciprocal care, since it goes as far
as stating the prevalence of the welfare of future generations before our own. (JONAS: 2015: p. 72-73). If the concerns and solutions presented here sound like science fiction, it is because this thesis considers Jonas's suggestions about the importance of taking fictional speculations seriously. The warnings proposed here may sound strange in current times, but are undoubtedly important in the long run (JONAS: 2015: p. 74).
Despite being in accordance with the Jonasian concept of summum malum and in agreement with the assertion that an individual entity’s violent death constitutes a minus malum, this thesis mainly parts way with Jonas’ view pertaining what the philosopher calls “the element of wager in human acting”. The argument presented here is that the most probable scenarios should be given precedence over an endless cluster of possible conjectures as a guide for an ethical action. In considering every conceivable risk, one would choose not to take any action before the sheer multitude of possibilities, in contradiction with the fact that the species extinction is the summum malum, which presents itself not as a matter of a hypothetical "if", but as a matter of the certain "when", given our restriction to planet Earth.
However, it is understandable that the Jonasian proposition of a heuristic of fear be limited to the risk of destruction led by humans. Let us consider the context: Jonas’ mother died in the concentration camps of Auschwitz and he bore witness to the attempt to exterminate the Jewish people; moreover, he also witnessed the cold war and the rise of the nuclear threat. If the Jonasian summum
malum exceeds the Hobbesian one, it is due to the fact that in Hobbes’ time it was
inconceivable that a ruler - no matter how insane - could be capable of exterminating an entire ethnic group or a whole group of other species. Nevertheless, while the Hobbesian summum malum is seemingly restricted to the philosopher’s ignorance of species extinction, the Jonasian version also seems limited to the uniformitarian paradigm.
Throughout the XIX century, uniformitarianism – as defended by Lyell9 - prevailed as the doctrine that explained the terrestrial geological transformations, serving as an alternative to the religious belief in a diluvian catastrophism. Broadly speaking, uniformitarianism postulated that the changes on the planetary surface were the result of gradual processes whose agents were not unusual, such as rain, snow, the erosion caused by the winds and so on. Based on his geological studies, Lyell concluded there was nothing to support the belief in the successive development of animal and vegetable life. Every being that ever was would have existed in every Earth era, and if a few had gone extinct, that would have been the result of slow processes such as lack of food, for instance (LYELL: 1990: pg. 123). In its time, uniformitarianism had deep implications in Darwin’s work10, leading him to the conclusion that extinctions always happened at a very slow pace, even slower than the rise of a new species (DARWIN: 1964: pg. 84). It is true that Darwin contradicted Lyell by pointing to the emergence of new species due to evolution and yet, both agreed that the phenomenon of extinction occurred gradually and related to the lack of resources, some sort of geographical restraints, which consequently led to the number of individuals dwindling. Darwin and Lyell's successors remained in keeping with the uniformitarian idea of slow extinction, even when it came to dinosaurs and other pre-historical animals so that science entered the XX century envisioning only one agent capable of causing sudden extinction: the human type.
It was only in the later 70s of the XX century that humankind was presented with the existence of events of global extinction caused by extraterrestrial forces. This knowledge was obtained in the outskirts of the Italian town of Gubbio in a place known as Gola del Bottaccione thanks to Walter Alvarez11 noticing how abruptly the species foraminifera seemed to have disappeared considering their fossil presence in the different layers of the rocks. It was Luís Alvarez12 (Walter’s father) who suggested dating the clay in Gubbio and ended up detecting this extraordinary amount of iridium in the samples (ALVAREZ: 2000: pg. 69). It just so happens that iridium is an extremely rare element on the terrestrial surface, albeit
9 Charles Lyell (1797-1875), Scottish geologist.
10 Charles Darwin (1809-1882), English naturalist, biologist, and geologist. 11 Walter Alvarez (born in 1940), American geologist.
highly abundant in meteorites. Understanding they had an anomaly in their hands, the Alvarezes decided to analyse the dirt of other geological sites where species seemed o have disappeared suddenly and detected the same abnormal presence of iridium. In June 1980, the Alvarezes’s article was published on Science under the title Extraterrestrial Cause for the Cretaceous Tertiary Extinction. The impact of this publication quickly spread beyond the realms of geology, positively influencing other fields of knowledge such as astrophysics13, while also facing the fierce resistance of many scientists of the time, as can be confirmed in an article entitled
Miscasting the Dinosaur’s Horoscope14. This and other pieces in the media of the
time like Dinosaur Experts Resist Meteor Extinction Idea15 clearly showthe extent to which science still stood by Lyell’s Uniformitarian paradigm. A paradigm that ruled out any sudden change, even when confronted with evidences to the contrary. Let us not forget Lyell himself was perfectly aware of the sudden gap in fossil records. In his Principles of Geology, Lyell refers to an abrupt gap between fossil strata found in rocks of the end of the Cretaceous and the beginning of the Paleogene. According to Lyell, it was impossible and non-philosophical to suppose that this abrupt rupture truly represented a sudden change to the order of things and that such suppression was most likely due to a fault in the fossil records (LYELL: 1990: p. 328, v. 3). Darwin was also well aware of the sudden change in the fossils in the later part of the Cretaceous and, just like Lyell, he attributed this to a fault in the records, interpretation that can be found throughout his On The
Origin of Species.
If nowadays science has already surpassed the uniformitarian paradigm and understands Earth’s history as a combination of both uniformitarianism and neocatastrophism, still bioethics remains predominantly confined to a concern regarding the dangers of the human technological action, and neglects the fact that extinction is not an anomaly exclusively introduced by human intelligence, rather, it is a component of the erratic course of nature itself. Despite the present thesis being in unison with Jonas’ definition for the summum malum, our disagreement lies on the procedural recommendations. Jonas is mainly concerned
13 Inspired by the Alvarez’ article, the American astrophysicist Carl Sagan (1934-1996) lead a team to model the effects of a nuclear war and conceived the concept of “nuclear winter” as a result. 14 The New York Times. April 2, 1985.
with the dangers of technological action and although he is right in his caution, his concerns are limited by the context of his time. Das Prinzip Verantwortung is a 1979 work, published a year before the Alvarezes’ article, whose impact took close to a decade to be absorbed by the most part of the scientific community.
As one of the strongest voices to take question with the unbridled technical progress and denounce the threat of disaster that comes with it, Jonas was a pioneer. His reservations in relation to technology are well substantiated by the fact that human action in the past need not be restrained by imaginative projections of possibilities. Whatever procedural blunders our ancestors made did not incur in irreversible consequences and hazard was, at most, brought upon the confines of time-space boundaries. The same cannot be said about our technologically empowered actions, whose oversights imperil not an isolated city but the very existence of humanity. It stands to reason that the possibility of extinction as the result of unrestrained technological development is unlikely scenario amidst the multitude of other possible scenarios and outcomes. However, this scenario belongs in a set whose probabilities could be altered by an ethical pact so as to reduce its likelihood. According to Jonas:
This reservation - that only the avoidance of the highest evil and not the pursuit of the highest good justifies, under certain special circumstances, that the interest of “others” is put at risk in its totality, for their own sake – does not offer support to justify the high stakes of technology. For these are not undertaken to preserve what exists or to alleviate what is unbearable, but rather to continually improve what has already been achieved, in other words, for progress, which at its most ambitious aims at bringing about an earthly paradise. It and its works stand therefore under the aegis of arrogance rather than of necessity (JONAS: 2015: pg. 85).
Jonas is not wrong when he perceives technological progress as brimming with vanity more than being driven by necessity. Nevertheless, the scenario where life is wiped out is elevated in category from contingent to apodictic in the absence of such technological advances. Note that Jonas implies in the aforementioned excerpt that the stakes may be worth the risk were "to preserve what exists" (id
est, humanity and other sentient beings) or "to alleviate what is unbearable" (the
Jonasian summum malum: the collective extinction) the ultimate aim.
And yet, if the element of technological innovation is removed from the equation, the element of extinction ceases to be a mere possibility. It would then
constitute a certainty. Jonas himself appears to be fully aware of Earth’s natural lifespan lapse in his 1988 work16 when speaking of the end of planet Earth as the result of natural cosmic events: the end of terrestrial revolutions, meteor collisions, death of the Sun, etc. Remarkably, Jonas seems not to apply his defence to an
unconditional duty to exist (JONAS: 2015: pg. 86), nor does he deem the
extinction of the human species unbearable as he refers to such facts of incontrovertible certainty - and that will cause complete annihilation. Here is what he has to say on cosmic disasters:
We should not be terrified by this cosmic expiration: in this interval which has been conquered - for us of long duration - characterized by great articulations from the very wide extent, the chances lie precisely in what for us, and probably also for a divine observer, constitutes the meaning of all the cosmic adventure (JONAS: 2012: 35).
Eight years stand between Das Prinzip Verantwortung and Materie, Geist
und Schöpfung. Jonas does not express human extinction as the result of cosmic
disasters is something to be feared in any of his works despite the fact that, as previously demonstrated, it belongs to the realm of absolute certainty and not that of mere contingency. At this point, the present thesis departures from Jonas. Even though the Jonasian ethic is not anthropocentric and does confer intrinsic worth not solely to humans, but to life, still it does not conceive the astronautic expansion of existence nor life’s astrobiological dimension. Though Jonas does not define his ideas as anthropocentric, they are ecocentric - or biogeocentric even - wherein life and planet Earth are inseparable from each other. Jonas on contacting extraterrestrial intelligent entities:
This we do know: that with us and in us, in this part of the universe and at this moment of our fateful power, the cause of God tremble in balance. What does it matter to us whether somewhere else it prospers or is endangered, is rescued or squandered? That our signal going out somewhere or other in the universe may not be a death notice- with this we have enough on our hands. Let us concern ourselves with our Earth. Whatever might exist out there, here is where our destiny is decided17 — and, along with our destiny,
that share of the wager of creation which lies in our hands can either be preserved or betrayed. Let us care about it as if we were, in fact, unique in the universe (JONAS: 1996: pg. 197).
16 Materia, Spirito e Creazione. Morcellana: 2012. Translated from German by Paolo Becchi and Roberto Franzini Tibaldeo.
According to the aforementioned excerpt, Jonas calls us to look after our own world as a precaution that our signal (...) may not be a death notice. As for how we can fend off our own extinction, given the fact that life has been so far intertwined with Earth, Jonas offers no perspectives. It is even possible to infer from this text that such extinction is not to be fended off, once, in the words of the philosopher here is where our destiny is decided, considering that Earth is not without an end and far from immune to cosmic interference. In establishing humanity's destiny as interwoven with the planet's, one has to passively comply with its indubitable future extinction, which is diametrically opposed to what Jonas himself advocates in stating that an unconditional duty for mankind to exist, and it
must not be confounded with the conditional duty of each and every man to exist
(JONAS: 2015: pg. 86).
If Jonas’ perspective on the summum malum states it as the extinction of the human species it makes no sense to settle for Earth as our destined residence. Forasmuch as our world has an expiration date regardless of human action, the summum malum may only be avoided by means of technological actions that aim at expanding humanity and other life forms beyond their own shape and terrestrial constraints, as contended in this thesis. It is also the burden of this paper to offer an astronautic dimension to existence.
Jonas took a huge and necessary step by attracting notice to the relevance of a non-anthropocentric ethic. We must, however, take one more step ahead toward a Copernican revolution of ethics, wherein the Earth is a cradle and worthy of care, but does not constitute centre or final destination and is instead regarded as a starting point. We are far more likely to avoid the summum malum by spreading throughout the galaxy and serve our purpose as distributors of the gift of
life. No other species detains the power and knowledge to accomplish this feat of
– to use a Jonasian term - non-reciprocal generosity.
It is thus necessary to extend far beyond Jonas’ concerns. It is not only the human technological action that should worry us, but also the unjustified human inaction in light of the scientific knowledge we currently detain. This is an immoral inaction that imperils more than the whole of humankind, but it puts at risk all life on Earth as well.
The expansionist and transhumanist endeavour proposed here is nothing like that of the first space run and its purposes, inasmuch as it worked within the framework of the cold war and was grounded on sentiments of vanity and competition. This proposal is above all about survival, and its first policy should be the creation of a space guard programme in order to protect the planet against cosmic menaces. Although science fiction does not intend to guess the future, there is in it a truth more powerful than reality.
For example: Clarke18’s Rendezvous with Rama seriously warns us regarding all this. The story begins with a great moral criticism on our tendency to act only when it is too late. Clarke starts by describing some real cosmic events that happened in our recent past. By remembering the meteorite that fell in Tunguska on June 30, 1908, he emphasises how vulnerable we are, given that
Moscow escaped destruction by three hours and four thousand kilometres – a margin invisibly small by the standards of the universe (CLARKE: 2011: pg. 8). He
also remembers the Sikhote-Alin meteorite falling close to Vladivostok in 1947 with
an explosion rivalling that of the newly invented uranium bomb (CLARKE: 2011:
pg. 8). It is quite clear that we are at the mercy of random cosmic events. We do not take serious measures regarding a space guard programme because we have not yet been hit in a way that really hurts us. So in order to demonstrate how random and indifferent the universe is, Clarke offers us a drastic fictional scene in which northern Italy is totally destroyed by thousands of tons of rock and metal falling from the sky. He writes:
The cities of Padua and Verona were wiped from the face of the Earth; and the last glories of Venice sank forever beneath the sea as the waters of the Adriatic came thundering landward after the hammer blow from space. Six hundred thousand people died, and the total damage was more than a trillion dollars. But the loss to art, to history, to science – to the whole human race, for the rest of time – was beyond all computation (CLARKE: 2011: pg. 9).
Thanks to that trauma, mankind reacts by saying there will be no next time, and so the “Project Space Guard” arises. Clarke’s warning is quite clear from the very beginning of the book: Sooner or later, it was bound to happen (CLARKE: 2011: p. 8). This thesis sustains Clarke is right, therefore is our moral obligation to
act in anticipation against the human extinction. It would be better to act in anticipation than merely reacting.
Although environmental ethics is being taken more and more seriously, it is still quite unusual for philosophers to address themes that go beyond the terrestrial context. The act of visualising the Earth as if it were within a shielded box with no interactions with cosmic space is a common misconception. In fact, people do tend to visualise themselves as living inside a box whose transparency merely allows the entrance and escape of light and heat. Until now, the major cosmic environmental concern regards the problem of space debris orbiting our planet. But the planet Earth is not a closed system. Common knowledge tends to be easily misled by the false idea of planetary stability. As said before, our planet has suffered events that cause global extinction, which were triggered by extraterrestrial factors that caused the extinction of more than 75% of the species. There is no guarantee - and we should not even act as if there were one - that cosmic extinction events will not recur.
Moreover, the very idea of "cosmos", taking the meaning of the Greek term that refers to "order" and "beauty", is somewhat illusory. In so many ways, common knowledge still lives under the idea of an Aristotelian macrocosmic harmony – the comfortable belief in an everlasting world.
1.2. Trasumanar: from Dante to Huxley.
Despite its recent ascent as an organised movement in human history, transhumanism and its dearest propositions may be traced back to ideas postulated by ancient thinkers who could be considered proto-transhumanists. In order to understand this movement, it must be clarified that many of its claims19 are strongly paralleled with ancient mystical mythopoetics.
As a matter of fact, “transhumanism” is a term probably used for the first time by Dante20 in La Divina Commedia in order to express a kind of human transcendence towards God. Since there was not a proper term to express his
19 Among all claims, the most recurrent ones are: immortality and paranormality; an existence with no suffering (or with less suffering, at least); and the one that interests us in the current thesis: the rising of a “new Earth” (in the sense of optimising and conserving our own world as well as of creating new habitable worlds whether natural or artificial ones.
mystical experience in Heaven, Dante coins the neologism trasumanar. In English, an acceptable translation from the Dantesque original could be: Transhumanising
cannot be expressed with words / but let the (previous) example be enough / to those who will experience it by the grace (of God)21.
Two centuries after Dante, Pico della Mirandola22 is considered to be a proto-humanist landmark of the Renaissance (MORE: 2013: pg. 9). In Oration on
the Dignity of Man, Mirandola reinvents the myth of creation, writing as if the Gods
addressed the humans. Notwithstanding the religious/mythological aspects found in the text, it proclaims one of the core transhumanistic ideals, which is that man does not have a ready‐made form and is responsible for shaping himself. Mirandola writes:
We have given you, oh Adam, no visage proper to yourself, nor any endowment properly your own, in order that whatever place, whatever form, whatever gifts you may, with premeditation, select, these same you may have and possess through your own judgment and decision. The nature of all other creatures is defined and restricted within laws which We have laid down; you, by contrast, impeded by no such restrictions, may, by your own free will, to whose custody We have assigned you, trace for yourself the lineaments of your own nature. I have placed you at the very center of the world, so that from that vantage point you may with greater ease glance round about you on all that the world contains. We have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, in order that you may, as the free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer. It will be in your power to descend to the lower, brutish forms of life; you will be able, though your own decision, to rise again to the superior orders whose life is divine (MIRANDOLA: 1956: p. 7-8).
There are other proto-humanist noteworthy names such as Giordano Bruno23, who intended to create some sort of meditation technique that was supposed to expand intelligence and memory. Also, Tommaso Campanella24 who advocated in favour of a somewhat mystical eugenics in his work The City of The
Sun, where he established that marriages determined by favourable astrological
prognostications would lead to the development of brighter and stronger human
21 Dante’s original reads: Trasumanar significa per verba non si poria / però l’essemplo basti a cui esperienza grazia serba; Paradiso (1).
22 Giovanni Piccolo della Mirandola (1463-1494), Italian philosopher.
23 Filippo Bruno (1548-1600), better known as Giordano Bruno, Italian philosopher, and Christian monk.
24 Giovanni Domenico Campanella, (1568-1639), better known as Tommaso Campanella, was an Italian philosopher, Dominican friar, and astrologer.
beings. Throughout the centuries, alchemists laboured to concoct the elixir of long life and sought other conceivable means to miraculously extend human capabilities.
It is quite clear that what was then sought after by magical means was later made possible by technological ones. Marquis de Condorcet25 is not to be forgotten here, as he was a critical cornerstone of this departure from magical thinking. He was one of the first illuminist thinkers to suggest an improvement in human nature and circumstances boosted by scientific knowledge with the potential to bring prosperity to the world. According to Condorcet:
In fine, may it not be expected that the human race will be meliorated by new discoveries in the sciences and the arts, as an unavoidable consequence, in the means of individual and general prosperity; by farther progress in the principles of conduct, and in moral practice; and lastly, by the real improvement of our faculties, moral, intellectual and physical, which may be the result either of the improvement of the instruments which increase the power and direct the exercise of those faculties, or of the improvement of our natural organization itself. (…) Would it even be absurd to suppose this quality of melioration in the human species as susceptible of an indefinite advancement; to suppose that a period must one day arrive when death will be nothing more than the effect either of extraordinary accidents, or of the flow and gradual decay of the vital powers; and the duration of the middle space, of the interval between the birth of man and his decay, will itself have no assignable limit? (CONDORCET apud MORE: 2013: pg. 9-10).
Since then, the word “transhumanism” has assumed several meanings, whose common point regards to the possibility of becoming more than human. Conversely, differences among ancient and contemporary meanings are huge. Dante’s trasumanar, for example, is a gift given by God. A grace not only spiritual but also corporeal, which is parallel with the Christian concept of resurrection: never a disembodied afterlife, given that the earthly Paradise is built in a post-apocalyptic world divinely created. Under this belief, the transformation of the mortal flesh into a glorious body is a promise, and promises do not depend on us. The Christian and Dantesque trasumanar is above all hope. The hope of being blessed and resurrected by God in new transhumanised bodies, in which our souls will be free from weakness or suffering in any instance.
25 Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat (1743-1794), also known as Nicolas de Condorcet, French philosopher and mathematician.
Another noteworthy difference between the Christian trasumanar and the contemporary transhumanism regards the distinction between quality and quantity. Contemporary transhumanism is dedicated to achieving more: more time, more life, more power, more pleasure, more places to go. The Christian trasumanar, in turn, by believing in a post-apocalyptic eternal life as reward, is not concerned with the extension of a bodily life, but with the quality of its even short existence. This concern for quality demands to dedicate life to the virtues that will guarantee a place in the Kingdom of God. It should be noted that in neither case is the Earthly Paradise incorporeal: from the Christian perspective, there is work to be done in the Divine Kingdom. From Christian trasumanar to contemporary transhumanism, the crucial difference is between having hope (in order to obtain a grace, a divine reward for our qualities/virtues) and acting (in order to guarantee more time and self-enhancement). If in Dante the trasumanar is a Godlike gift (grazia), the current transhumanistic movement is not interested in waiting for a possibility grounded in faith and hope. Instead of waiting for an eventual future Paradise, contemporary transhumanists want to make it real here and now.
The transhumanism proposed here is contrary to any guarantees provided by the Christian trasumanar. The Christian trasumanar is an apocalyptic guarantee, it is heaven established after the dead are resurrected in new glorious bodies. It is a promise rising in the horizon pending on the three theological virtues/qualities: hope (of one day reaching heaven), faith (in the existence of heaven itself) and charity (as a condition to enter heaven).
Conversely, contemporary transhumanism is not a guarantee, it is a goal founded in desperation26. There is no heaven guaranteed for this universe, although this heaven could be highly likely to exist in some universe, considering the cosmic adventure unfolds in multiple realities. Hence, it is imperative that we fight so that our universe is one of the successful scenarios since this is a universe prone to the emergence of life and which finds in the emergence of consciousness its greatest realisation. We should follow an ethic imperative: to see this planet not as our destiny, but as a starting point, given that the natural mortality of this world
26 In the sense of: “the feeling of being in such a bad situation that you will take any risk to change it”.
is a concrete fact27. Raising the odds for life and consciousness is mandatory, and should be considered as our moral obligation as intelligent beings we indeed are.
At this point, it is worth to note that some theses and articles on transhumanism tend to turn to the summum bonum as a main theme. A good example is available in David Pearce28’s manifesto against all suffering:
This manifesto outlines a strategy to eradicate suffering in all sentient life. The abolitionist project is ambitious, implausible, but technically feasible. It is defended here on ethical utilitarian grounds. Genetic engineering and nanotechnology allow Homo sapiens to discard the legacy-wetware of our evolutionary past. Our post-human successors will rewrite the vertebrate genome, redesign the global ecosystem, and abolish suffering throughout the living world. (…) Our descendants may live in a civilisation of serenely well-motivated "high-achievers", animated by gradients of bliss. Their productivity may far eclipse our own29.
Although the transhumanistic approach sometimes may be utopian in several ways, the current thesis is focused on harm reduction policies. Many propositions have been put forward by transhumanists, but the idea that techne be intentionally employed to actively promote enhancement is one that is shared by all of them. This human intent that architects, plans, designs and produces results through technology is endorsed by transhumanists as part of the set of desirable items, provided that said directed intention is guided by an ethical criteria within a non-anthropocentric framework. The transhumanist ethos defends the maximum reduction of any involuntary suffering of sentient beings based on damage control. Although the many existing organised groups who self identify as transhumanists30 subscribe to different strands of political positions, the alleviation of the suffering of all sentient beings is a commonality among them.
27 One could argue that the mortality of the universe is also a concrete fact. There is nothing to say, however, that other universes cannot be created from information provisioned by the consciousness that emerged here (baby universes, as imagined by Gardner, whose hypothesis we are going to analyse in the next chapter), constituting an endless game, a never ending story this way.
28 A British philosopher, and co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association.
29 PEARCE, D. The Hedonistic Imperative. Available at: https://www.hedweb.com/hedab.htm. Accessed on March 14, 2019.
30 See for example the “Humanity Plus”, who constitutes an organised transhumanist group. Official website: http://hplusmagazine.com (accessed December 1, 2018). There are also organised political movements such as the “Transhumanist Party” who in 2016 nominated Zoltan Istvan - a self-proclaimed "libertarian" - to the presidency of the USA. Official website: http://transhumanist-party.org (accessed December 1, 2018).
The term “transhumanism” as referring to the view that humans should better themselves through science and technology was first devised by Julian Huxley31. In 1957, Huxley publishes his article Transhumanism, with the premise that the human superior intellect did not grant us special rights but rather that it imposes us duties and demands that we be more responsible toward other beings and the universe as a whole. Huxley’s text is especially meaningful as it presents our enhancement not as a complimentary of a frivolous, vain, arrogant or self-absorbed motivation, but as the foundation on top of which a human responsibility that cannot be ignored is built:
As a result of a thousand million years of evolution, the universe is becoming conscious of itself, able to understand something of its past history and its possible future. This cosmic self-awareness is being realised in one tiny fragment of the universe — in a few of us human beings. Perhaps it has been realised elsewhere too, through the evolution of conscious living creatures on the planets of other stars. But on this our planet, it has never happened before (HUXLEY: 1957: p. 13-17).
It is interesting to note Huxley’s considerations in regard to alien intelligence. That is the utmost tenet of transhumanism: in contrast with other outlooks, it does not ascribe inherent worth to humankind but to a cosmic
self-awareness. The same type of awareness might have already come into shape at
some other corner of the universe and might even be artificially created in our own world. That said, it is possible to postulate that transhumanism as conceived by Huxley, and defended here is not anthropocentric. Humankind’s inherent worth does not rest upon its form, but in its intellect and awareness. Therefore, said worth could take any other shape, including one of our own design.
When the claims driving the debate assert that a given being has value in their own right, chances are the focus is on how entitled said being is to have rights and why it is special in contrast with all the other ones whose value is merely instrumental. To Huxley, however, what matters is not a being’s right to something but its responsibility, id est, the duty that follows the gift of intelligence. But what is the nature of this responsibility?
31 Julian Sorell Huxley (1887-1975), a British biologist, first director of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
In an attempt to answer this question, one should not ignore the fact that much is said about humankind’s destructive potential, about our impact on the planet, that our actions lead to the extinction of whole species and how we have been drastically changing the climate. All this is true. Nevertheless, it is also true that extinction is nature’s default rule. The very same nature that was time and again referred to as possessing the intelligence of a watchmaker would be more accurately described as a blind watchmaker. Any sense of stability and safety are but an illusion that our brief existence in this world allows us to entertain.
While human destructive power is to be feared, mass extinction events have already taken place long before we came into being and will happen again at some point in the future. Be as damning as human impact on the planet may be, it still is not capable of making life utterly unsustainable. The same cannot be said about extreme cosmic events. It is a matter of time until the sun extinguishes, putting an end to all life on the planet. All shortcomings aside, the human species is the only one capable of protecting life – beyond that of its own species - against the fatal cosmic extinction. As pointed by Huxley:
The new understanding of the universe has come about through the new knowledge amassed in the last hundred years — by psychologists, biologists, and other scientists, by archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians. It has defined man’s responsibility and destiny — to be an agent for the rest of the world in the job of realising its inherent potentialities as fully as possible. (…) That is his inescapable destiny, and the sooner he realises it and starts believing in it, the better for all concerned (HUXLEY: 1957: p. 13-17).
That is the centre of Huxley’s transhumanism, which this thesis agrees with:
intelligent beings who have a destiny and a responsibility to nature and the universe. Some features of non-accidentality are made clear when Huxley holds
that this responsibility constitutes an “inescapable destiny”. Defining something as “inescapable” entails non-contingency, which seems quite out of place for a biologist, given the fact that the existence of humankind is nothing but a mere contingency like any other in the light of natural selection. A contingency susceptible to destruction as a result of an asteroid collision, any other random cosmic phenomenon or even as a result of its own technological advances run amok.
It is relevant to highlight that although Huxley opens his article by pointing out that self-awareness is being realised in us human beings, he does not rule out the possibility of it being realised elsewhere as well. Once Huxley establishes consciousness is a product of an evolving universe, it stands to reason that this consciousness has already been realised, is being realised and will be realised at other places and at other times given how vast the universe is. Our universe would thus be biophilic and the second chapter of this thesis demonstrates that there is enough evidence to support this view satisfactorily.
If consciousness is the result of an evolutionary process of the universe and if the universe is so vast, in the event of humankind not taking the lead of its
inescapable destiny of responsibility, one day some other intelligent/self-aware
species will. Nevertheless, it is possible to argue that Huxley's view is optimistic since the realisation of consciousness could well be unique to Earth, considering that which we call the "universe" is still a finite and limited set – no matter its size. The unlikelihood of this statement does not make it utterly impossible. Why is it then that Huxley bets on an “inescapable destiny” for intelligence?
As far as beliefs go, one might contend that perhaps there is a cosmic telos to favour the emergence of life. The realisation of intelligence, and self-awareness has however worse odds. After all, even if we work with the concept of infinity, not even the spatial nor the temporal endlessness of multiple universes may guarantee intelligence to come about.
Three philosophical questions arise from this Huxley’s excerpt. The first question is: does the author advocates a cosmic Darwinism? It would seem so in light of the link he establishes between the realisation of consciousness on planet Earth and an evolutionary process of thousands of years to subsequently state that the very same process could have happened elsewhere; The second one is:
does Huxley defend the existence of a cosmic plan? The answer to this is: likely
so, though hardly in a theist sense. The intelligence/self-awareness that is noticeable in us would act as an agent to make the intrinsic potentialities come to their own; that applies not only to humankind but to the rest of the world; This begets the third question: which potentialities are these?
Alas, Huxley does not provide an answer in his article to nature’s intrinsic potentialities to which he alludes. He propounds we have a responsibility to the
universe, but does not describe what constitutes said responsibility. Huxley's scope is limited to outlining our potential for self-enhancement by means of science and technology, our ability to overcome unnecessary misery:
Up till now, human life has generally been, as Hobbes described it, nasty,
brutish and short; the great majority of human beings (if they have not
already died young) have been afflicted with misery in one form or another— poverty, disease, ill-health, over-work, cruelty, or oppression. They have attempted to lighten their misery by means of their hopes and their ideals. (…) We are already justified in the conviction that human life as we know it in history is a wretched makeshift, rooted in ignorance; and that it could be transcended by a state of existence based on the illumination of knowledge and comprehension, just as our modern control of physical nature based on science transcends the tentative fumbling of our ancestors, that were rooted in superstition and professional secrecy (HUXLEY: 1957: p. 13-17).
Huxley introduces a powerful point that appears to have gotten off track along the text. Clearly, the responsibility of which he speaks is one that the human species has over the rest of the world. The focus prematurely shifts, however, to a description of our capacity to overcome limitations. Notwithstanding, the transhumanists that ensued made clear that such responsibility and destiny is twofold: (1) there is a need to preserve life and consciousness - though not necessarily the anthropomorphic one through which consciousness is realised; (2) and the need to ensure the proliferation of life and of consciousness throughout the cosmos.
Huxley concludes his article by emphasising yet another important element of this responsibility and destiny: that it is not restricted to an individual process. That it is, instead, a collective one involving the whole species, which translates into a new form of existence.
The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself — not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realising new possibilities of and for his human nature. I believe in
transhumanism: once there are enough people who can truly say that, the
human species will be on the threshold of a new kind of existence, as different from ours as ours is from that of Peking man. It will at last be consciously fulfilling its real destiny (HUXLEY: 1957: p. 13-17).
The ancient myths abound with tales of human transmutation into other species, not to mention people with magical powers. According to contemporary
transhumanists, that which we dreamed of in the form of fiction can now be realised by means of technological advancements. Those fantasies of ours from the past gradually take shape in present reality and in a likely future one, which calls for a new ethics.
This new ethics, as seen here, emerges from the stress between Dante and Huxley’s concept of transhumanism: on Dante’s perspective, a new Earth and a new body given by God (hope); on Huxley’s view, there is nothing guaranteed, but a goal we should fight for instead of waiting for.
1.3. Prometheus unbound.
Even human beings who are contrary to transhumanism are transanimals, for their history is one of a constant plight against their biological limitations. Though some animal species are intellectually advanced to the point that they are able to make use of tools, the human species is the only one capable of not only transcending the biological limitations imposed upon them but also of altering many future possible outcomes by means of ever more sophisticated technological enhancements. The Darwinian mechanism for natural selection where those best suited to the environment survive is reshaped by human intelligence now that it is the environment that changes to adapt after our influence. We now detain the power to bring about river diversions, deforestation or reforestation. In a very likely future, such human modifications to entire worlds could be made possible by planetary engineering processes known as “terraforming”. Technology - which encompasses genetic engineering - has advanced to the point whereby we can redesign ourselves as well as future generations.
This is paramount to the transhumanist thinking: the idea that not only is it feasible but also desirable that humankind draws upon techne to reshape itself and the surrounding environment to the extent that limitations and suffering of biological roots are mitigated or ultimately overcome altogether. Those evolutionary mechanisms driven by blind nature bear intentionality when driven by us. The claims asserting the desirability of this enterprise must, however, undergo philosophical scrutiny once an action grounded merely on its feasibility does not
entail ethics in its foundation. The fact that something is possible is not akin to it being advisable.
Such inquiry over the foundations of ethics is imperative considering that, at the present, the bulk of human activities is not limited to temporal-spatial confines as it once was. As pointed by Jonas, if our ancestors’ misguided deeds put people in danger and posed a threat to a general quality of life that could linger for some time into the future, the contemporary human power of influence has a much farther reach. Our actions may affect the whole extent of the Earth as well as deprive our descendants of any future (JONAS: 2015: p. 31-34). The contentions regarding the prescriptive role of psychology no longer apply before this scenario. New ethical systems must be set forth. To that intent, the use of imagination as a tool is pivotal, since resigning to the contemplation of that which is and that which once was will not suffice anymore. A philosophy dedicated to probable futures is critical in light of the implications of the power we currently detain.
It is worth to remember that in the early nineteenth century Hegel32 said, regarding our desire to establish how the world ought to be, that (...) philosophy, at
any rate, always comes too late to perform this function (...) the owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the onset of the dusk (HEGEL: 1991: p. 23). This
Hegelian allegory could however be reread by noting that the moment the owl of Minerva begins its flight, it has a brief overview of the world before a new dawn. Hence one of the reasons why this thesis is concerned with the philosopher Hans Jonas for the greater part: throughout his life work – notably in Das Prinzip
Verantwortung - Jonas pleads for the outlining of a philosophy that contemplates
the future. For instance, Jonas’s words Knowledge of the Possible is Heuristically
Sufficient for the Doctrine of Principles (JONAS: 2015: p. 73) are the philosopher’s
admission that the uncertainty of prognostications require extrapolations of an exponentially higher degree of complexity, but he goes on to say that
(…) this, however, does not preclude the projection of probable or arguably possible end effects. (…) Its means are thought experiences, which are not only hypothetical in the assumption of premises (...) but also conjectural in the inference from “if” to “then” (...) (JONAS: 2015: p. 73-74).
Traditional ethics is proven insufficient to perform such conjectural endeavour. Fiction then comes into play, pointed out by Jonas as:
(...) a casuistry of the imagination which, unlike the customary casuistries of law and morality that serve the trying out of principles already known, assists in the tracking and discovering of principles still unknown. The serious side of science fiction lies precisely in its performing such well-informed thought experiments, whose vivid imaginary results may assume the heuristic function proposed. (See, for e.g., A. Huxley's Brave New World.) (JONAS: 2015: p. 74).
Other thinkers are in alignment with Jonas when they characterise the significance of science fiction to society. Clarke, for one, defends that:
Fiction is more than non-fiction in some ways (…). You can stretch people’s minds, alerting them to the possibilities of the future, which is very important in an age where things are changing rapidly33.
Foucault viewed fiction as not being reduced to an instrumental conjectural role, one for foresight and admonition, but also as an inchoative tool to produce the future:
It seems to me that the possibility exists for fiction to function in truth, for a fictional discourse to induce effects of truth, and for bringing it about that a true discourse engenders or “manufactures” something that does not as yet exist, that is, “fictions” it. One “fictions” history on the basis of a political reality that make it true, one “fictions” a politics not yet in existence on the basis of a historical truth (FOUCAULT: 1994: p. 236).
Thus, there are at least two distinct senses to the act of fictioning – embracing here the Foucaultian neologism. One is ascribed by Foucault himself, which is that of imagining something in order to bring such thing into existence, a productive engagement with the aim of realisation, which is the intent of the transhumanist movement. The second sense of fictioning is that of prescribing a desirable future. Prescribing a city of the future is a simpler task than the other sense of fictioning: to use fiction as a toolkit for anticipation in order to lay grounds for an ethic, as put forward by Clarke. After all, envisioning the future involves the assessment of an immeasurable number of different degrees of likelihood inherent
33 Clarke, Arthur C. Interviewed by The AV Club (2004, February 18). Retrieved from: https://www.avclub.com/arthur-c-clarke-1798208319. October 12 2018.
to a barrage of possible outcomes that are hard to grasp due to our cognitive limitations. Prescribing a desirable future, on the other hand, is more reasonable. It is what the current thesis intends to do, given that it is, as Huxley sustains, our responsibility as intelligent species.
In light of all this, the present thesis is in consonance with Jonas in his quest for the elaboration of a new ethic that meets the demands of the current human condition, in view that in the past:
(...) techne in the form of modern technology has turned into an infinite forward-thrust of the race, its most significant enterprise, in whose permanent, self-transcending advance to ever greater things the vocation of man tends to be seen, and whose success of maximal control over things and himself appears as the consummation of his destiny (...) Ethical significance belonged to the direct dealing of man with man, including the dealing with himself: all traditional ethics is anthropocentric (...) The good and evil about which action had to care lay close to the act, either in the praxis itself or in its immediate reach, and were not a matter for remote planning. This proximity of ends pertained to time as well as space. The effective range of action was small, the time-span of foresight, goal-setting and accountability was short, control of circumstances limited (...). The long run of consequences beyond was left to chance, fate or providence (JONAS: 2015: p. 35).
The Kantian ethics comprising human-human relationships is not rendered obsolete by the emergence of this new ethic but has its scope expanded instead. Both Jonas and transhumanists alike converge in the argument for a model that stretches beyond anthropocentric views in order to escape the greatest of all evils: the extinction of human species. Although this argument seems anthropocentric, it is not. Humankind is seen as the only species who is responsible for the other living beings, not as more valuable than them. We shall see later the main points that sustain such argument. Shared common grounds notwithstanding, there are points of rupture between Jonas and transhumanists that require closer examination.
Just as in the myth of Prometheus, fire is the element that endows us with the power of the gods. Since its discovery, we have been ceaselessly changing nature - our own and that which surrounds us - like no other sentient being on this planet has. Our transanimal condition entices us to “fiction” worlds in order to create them. One may ponder that the gods represented in our myths are much more than an expression of our superstitious understanding of nature. Perhaps
